High Lodge Shooting Ground: clay shooting in Suffolk

John Bidwell’s vision for High Lodge

John Bidwell is living the clay shooter’s dream. During his illustrious career he spent 30 years shooting for Great Britain, claimed seven world championship titles, and a spectacular array of European and British silverware. He also assisted the development of Blaser’s F3 platform, authored Move, Mount, Shoot: A Champion’s Guide to Sporting Clays, and once even held the record for most clays broken in one throw, with seven smashed in four seconds.

Now he is enjoying a very well-deserved semi-retirement with regular visits to the clay ground he built to match the best he had seen through his career. A clay ground now managed, in part, by his daughter, Jane Coppen.

“John always wanted to create a venue with everything a shooter might look to enjoy,” adds Jane. “Today, this ambition is continuing through the family as we continue to look to offer as much choice as possible to practising clay shooters, while remaining accessible to corporate clients and newcomers to our sports.

“These days John likes to spend his days on his own projects but still gets stuck in with mapping out the courses for our major competitions and is regularly in the clubhouse catching up with customers.”

Clay shooting facilities at High Lodge

John and his son-in-law, Andrew Coppen, have a lot to play with when setting challenging competition routes, with 30 Sporting stands available to loop and wind around on any given day.

“The entire course is fully automated and includes a number of multi-button stands that offer five or six targets from one position,” Jane explains. “We aim to offer variety. Generally, we change half the course at a time so that returning shooters have a new challenge, while also having enough time to return to trickier targets. We also like to keep a set of our multi-button stands the same to use for instruction.

“Adding even greater variety, we have our Compak/Sportrap layouts, which we change every two weeks to coincide with our CPSA registered competitions.

“Plus, we offer English Skeet and DTL, with four to six layouts open every day. We installed these arenas in 2015, with fully automated, voice-activated traps. They’ve been popular ever since.”

Those who struggle with such luxury of choice can, thankfully, pick and choose what to shoot and when, with the entire site fully accessible via High Lodge’s easy-to-use card-counting system.

Clay shooting lessons and coaching

The only remaining issue, then, is how to hit the targets offered. For that, we can turn to High Lodge’s team of instructors.

“Our instructors can offer support to any shooter, no matter their experience level or shooting goals. Jack and Oliver are both experienced clay and game shooters, while Andrew tends to focus more directly on clays and follows in John’s footsteps by helping students perfect the ‘Move, Mount, Shoot’ technique,” says Jane.

“A single lesson is ideal for those looking to tackle a particular problem target or wanting a basic breakdown of their technique.

“Though to really build on that, we recommend starting a course of lessons. This allows our instructors to build new habits with our clients while helping them gain a much better understanding of proper technique.

“A course is an investment, but it gives clients the ability to self-correct in the future. We have seen many happy customers return time and again for further lessons or to use their newfound skills at one of our events or on practice clays.”

Learning FITASC, Skeet and Sportrap

It must be noted that instruction at High Lodge is not limited to Sporting, or to getting one’s eye in ahead of the game season. Rather, educational opportunities abound across all the disciplines offered around the ground.

“Recently we started offering group lessons for FITASC, Compak, and Sportrap, with Skeet sessions starting very soon. In these lessons, our instructors offer an introduction to the disciplines and break down the techniques required for the targets in question,” continues Jane.

“The idea is to offer a strong introduction to shooters who have never considered these disciplines, to encourage them to try something new and then maybe join one of our Skeet or Trap competitions in the future.”

Competitions and events at High Lodge

There are many events to get stuck into, with the bi-weekly registered competitions sitting alongside numerous special events and corporate days.

“We’ve got some special, larger events planned for 2026,” Jane hints, “but we’re not quite ready to announce everything yet. We can say that the Sally Bidwell Memorial Shoot will return, and that readers should keep an eye out for some big event announcements coming soon.”

Fishing lakes and luxury holiday lodges

If pitting your shooting skills against others for prizes and prestige sounds too stressful, then consider trying something more relaxing, something very few shooting grounds offer, fishing.

“We have two fishing lakes onsite,” says Jane. “The day lake is open to all and is stocked with coarse fish including tench, roach, carp, rudd, and perch, while our largest lake is for the exclusive use of those staying in one of our lodges.”

That’s right. On top of the sweeping Sporting course, the Skeet and Trap arenas, clubhouse facilities, and fishing lakes, High Lodge also has its own set of luxury holiday lodges. Some are even equipped with their own private hot tubs. John really did create a venue with everything a clay shooter might enjoy.

“It’s the variety and quality of our facilities that customers appreciate,” concludes Jane. “I think that variety, our family’s forty-plus years in the industry, and our super-friendly staff make High Lodge really special.”